Next Gen Tech (NGT): STORAGE

[Pemalite]

Intrinsic said:

A while back I had a series of threads called tech talk. In line with that series but this one hopefully more open, i wanna start another series that lets us discuss and share what we think will be in the next generation of console hardware. 

The discuss part simple means you should make a vote in this thread and talk about whatever you think or know pertaining to the topic. The sahre part means you could make a thread and mark it out as NGT: (insert whatever you wanna cover here) in there. This way we could hopefully have the all you may need to know threads of different compononets of console gaming hardware presently and as they develop.

Now that thats out of the way. On with this thread.

STORAGE

This is important not just to store game data, but it plays a big role on how quickly your games load or even how th e games are designed. Basically, we have three  interfaces (yes two interfaces but multiple possible drives).

 

1. SATA (up to 500MB/s)
   this is what everyone is using right now. Its what is in the PS4/XB1. If the next gen consoles come with this interface as its default interface, then the best we will have are SSDs that allows us have transfer speeds of a maximum of 500MB/s (and in truth that is just theoretically)
   
   
2. M.2 (up to 3GB/s)
   This new tech has been gaining a lot of traction right now, but is still firmly rooted in what may be considered as enthusiast tech. Its possible to have a universal M.2 interface that supports the cheaper SATA level speeds 500MB/s SSDs and also support the faster (but more expensive) NvME 3GB/s  SSDs.
   
   
3. Embedded Storage
   This will be akin to going with the Nintendo Switch route. And with this all bets are pretty much off. But Ideally it entails having ssome for of nand flash storage built right onto the MB of the systems. It could also offer support for eithe SATA or M.2 NvME speeds depending on how they go about implementing it.

Thats it, short and simple. So what do you guys think? Whcih do you thik we will get in the next gen consoles? What do you want to see and what do you think will be possible in about 2 years from now?

 

Your discussion is not really about storage. It is about interfaces that storage typically (not always) use.

Sata is also not "up to" 500MB/s.
Sata 3.2 is actually up to "1969MB/s." (16Gbits)

Sata 3 tops out at 600MB/s.
Sata 2 tops out at 300MB/s.
Sata 1 tops out at 150MB/s.

If they retain their use of mechanical disks... Then outside of burst speeds (Aka. Data loading from a Hard Drives cache to Ram), you will not see a difference between Sata 2's 300MB/s and Sata 3.2's 1969MB/s.

shikamaru317 said:

I'm not expecting too much of an improvement next gen honestly. Large SSD's just aren't financially viable for a console, and we're going to need large storage considering how big games are already getting this gen. I'm thinking we'll get a 2-4TB SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive) over SATA, which are only slightly more expensive than a standard hard drive of the same size, but can improve load times by as much as 50% versus a standard hard drive.

They might not even bother with a Hybrid drive.
Next gen they will go with whatever is cost effective for the capacity, that is likely to still be mechanical disks rather than more expensive Hybrid drives or SSD's.

However... They could include a few gigabytes of SLC NAND as a cache on the motherboard, but I highly doubt even that.

TallSilhouette said:

Yeah, as much as I wish it weren't the case, unless the cost efficiency makes some huge leaps in the next few years big SSD's probably won't  get cheap enough in time for 9th gen - in which case SSHD's would make sense - hopefully with relatively decent clocks and intelligent distribution.

Depends on how low they can go with TLC Stacked Nand on a cost-per gigabyte perspective. If they could pull off a 1 Terabyte SSD for under $100, then all bets are probably off.
Of course we consumers will still need to buy external drives and such for those with decent game library's.